Author's Note:

Hey everyone! Sooooo it's Thursday! Which means I'm one day behind! Oops! I'm sorry!

As always, HUGE thanks to all my fantastic wonderful amazing reviewers out there! Big hugs and kisses to my repeat reviewers: TheJSmooth, WisdomDragon27, valerioux, Daisy73, Anna5949, Lucinda, SunnieDayys, Lady La-sara, stranger1999, and Wolves silver wind. Equally big hugs and kisses to my newest reviewer: Stubenhocker.

Again, so sorry for the late posting. Ack.

So anyways, on with the show! And be sure to stay till the end for a sneak peek of next chapter. ;D

The next day, Natsu decided to come with her on the very dangerous bunny eradication job – and to also help her lug the super heavy cage. Plus, she definitely needed his help to transport the little buggers to their mountain home once they'd been captured.

Laxus opted out, uninterested in tagging along for fun, so it was just the four of them as they made their way out to the edge of town and the plantation where Lucy had been chewed up only a day ago. They made their way to the tunnel hub like before, and spent some time setting up the cage.

Before they started though, Lucy decided that it would probably be prudent to plug up all the scattered holes throughout the grounds, so she summoned up Scorpio and they all split up looking for holes. Whenever one was found, Scorpio and Natsu would converge on it and work together to plug it up so securely that even a Bunnicula couldn't get out. Scorpio packed it super tight with sand, which Natsu then heated up until it solidified into glass.

They started with the holes furthest away from the hub, hoping that they could fence them in without angering the little irritants too badly right off the bat. It worked, up until they attacked a hole that apparently had a bunny nearby. They certainly didn't know there was a bunny down that tunnel, but they sure found out about it when Happy suddenly yelled a warning from the air that one had just leaped out of a nearby hole and was hightailing it their way. They could hear it coming too. That frightening deep growl was unmistakable, sounding almost like a rabid dog bearing down on them… and a loud, angry one at that. Natsu and Scorpio did a rush job on the hole and whirled around right as it sprung, aiming for Scorpio's throat.

Lucy was faster though, and she'd been ready for it. She snapped her whip out and popped the little white monster right on the nose, sending it careening away from Scorpio before its sharp teeth could get him. It let out a loud roar – which was simply shocking coming from a rabbit – and that triggered an all-out attack. Suddenly rabbits came from every direction, and they had to make a hasty withdrawal, Scorpio popping back to the spirit realm and the rest of them taking to the sky.

They retreated up the hill and waited for the commotion to die down. Apparently – though they were super aggressive – they also had an attention span comparable to Natsu's. As soon as the enemy was out of sight and smell, they milled around for a bit and then ducked down into their holes again.

Once again, they all gingerly made their way back down into the field, and Lucy re-summoned Scorpio once she was sure the coast was clear. They successfully filled in another handful of holes before the process repeated itself. This time though, one of the rabbits actually managed to bite Natsu on the leg, which predictably infuriated him. By the time that bunny was dashing back to its hole, it was no longer white but charred black and its tail was still smoking.

The third time they went in, they barely got two holes covered before they were under fire. The first Bunnicula flew out of nowhere, aiming right for Lucy's head. Amy intercepted it though, launching herself forwards and grabbing it out of midair with wide open jaws. They proceeded to have a battle of wills then as the white wolf landed with the bunny securely gripped. Of course it fought back, tearing at her muzzle with sharp claws. She quickly unlatched her jaw, swinging her head to throw it away from her. However, it clung to her and kept scratching and biting rabidly at her face. Other rabbits poured out of the woodwork by that point as well, so it wasn't like Natsu or Lucy could rush to her aide.

"Open! Gate of the Ram!" Lucy screamed, and Aries popped into being.

Thankfully she knew what to do and sent out a massive wool ball that calmed down all the Bunniculas, and then she wrapped a cloud of the stuff around Amy's head. That allowed the wolf to easily shake the barnacle-bunny off her face, and they all made a speedy getaway. Once they were safe, everyone crowded around Amy, taking a look at her scratched up face. Thankfully none of the scratches were too bad, and her eyes were safe, but Lucy still firmly sent her back to the celestial world to heal up.

The remaining three rested on the hilltop, relatively pleased with the progress they had made, but still quite shaken. They had only managed to fill up half of the holes, and they not only still had to fill the rest of the holes, but also catch the bunnies themselves – which was infinitely more dangerous.

Unknown to the three on the hill, a certain infuriated wolf paid a little visit to a very stubborn turtle spirit in the celestial realm.

…

Lucy, Natsu, and Happy were just gearing up to go down into the bunny minefield once again, when suddenly there was a green poof and Bartolomeo popped up.

Lucy gasped, first with surprise and then excitement. "Bartolomeo! It's so good to see you! We could really use your help, if you wouldn't mind."

He huffed and flushed a little – which she'd noticed he did a lot oddly enough – and glanced away from her. "Of course I'm here to help. Why else would I have shown up?"

"Uh…right. Of course." she deadpanned, blinking a little to recover from his snarky reply.

Natsu scoffed.

"You are such a jackass!" he laughed and gave Bartolomeo a friendly punch in the shoulder.

The celestial tortoise was utterly unaffected and just raised an eyebrow and smirked sideways at Natsu as he cussed and shook his hand, as if he'd hurt himself instead – which chances were, he had, given Bart's impenetrable shield.

Smirk still in place, he shook out his maroon trench coat and tugged on the lapels in a, 'that's right, I'm bad,' sort of way.

Watching the two of them interact, Lucy couldn't help but feel they were relatively well acquainted with each other… possibly even friends. Snorting her amusement, she herded the two ornery celestial spirits with her back down into the valley of bunny death.

"All right, with your shield we should be able to do this no problem."

"Right. So…what exactly are you guys fighting?" Bart asked, absentmindedly scratching a pointy elf-looking ear.

"Rabbits." Lucy said dully.

He looked at her for a moment with a totally blank expression. Then he busted out laughing.

"You're kidding right? Rabbits?!"

"They're not your everyday bunnies though … they're killer bunnies. I don't suppose you're familiar with Bunniculas are you?"

"Nope!" he snorted, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes as he continued to snicker uncontrollably.

Natsu was just rolling his eyes and snorting at Bart's amusement… up until the turtle decided to taunt him. "Seriously? The big bad fire dragon is being beaten up by bunnies?!"

That got a scowl from her fiery partner as he glared at the newcomer to the situation. "Oi! Like Lucy said, these are killer bunnies! Just wait till you see them…then you won't be laughing."

"HA!"

"Alright, alright, whether you believe us or not, you'll get to see for yourself. Now, how do we want to go about this? We've still got a bunch of holes to fill."

Bart shrugged, and she supposed he'd just figure out what to do with his shield when the time came for it. So they all headed down into the valley – mainly because Natsu had lost his patience and looked like he was going to try punching the green haired snickering spirit again.

As before, Lucy summoned Scorpio, and they set about filling in the hole furthest away from the hub while Happy stayed airborne to keep a lookout. It wasn't until the next hole that they got a result from the bunnies, and their lookout yelled the warning.

"Here they come!"

Right on cue, at least ten of the little suckers charged at them, their speed taking Bartolomeo somewhat by surprise. He still managed to get a shield up around them as Natsu and Scorpio continued to fill in that hole, but it was a close call and more than one rabbit smacked into the light green see-through barrier at full force.

"Woah!"

"See?! They aren't exactly cute and cuddly are they?!" Natsu shouted over the loud snarls and roars of the enraged bunnies, who were doing their absolute best to try and chew through the shield.

They managed to fill in that hole, and then shuffled their way to the next, all hunkered down under the shield and taking it with them. By now, the bunnies were tearing at the ground too to try and get under the shield, so Bartolomeo had to constantly adjust it. It was just a good thing that – while they were insanely strong and fast – they didn't seem to be especially speedy diggers. Happy hovered in the sky over them, directing them to the next hole from his higher up, bunny-free perspective.

In this manner they managed to fill in the last of the outlying holes, and then decided to withdraw and let the bunnies calm down for phase two of their plan. Bart opened up a hole in his shield so that Natsu and Lucy could fly out, and then he constructed himself stairs out of the barrier. As soon as he was off the ground, he terminated the barrier below him, and once they were high enough, he just constructed a road to walk along beside them as they flew back to the overlooking hill. The barrier behind him fell away as he walked, so only the road directly under him stuck around.

As soon as they landed on the hill, they went over the next phase of Lucy's plan. "So now that we have all the holes plugged except for the ones in the main bunny hub, it's time for phase two."

"What's phase two?"

"I'm going to summon Aries and she'll send her wool ball down into the holes, collecting all the bunnies and funneling them up out of the holes in the hub. We'll wrap them with wool and then deposit them into the large cage we've already put down there. Hopefully we won't have any problems, but if you don't mind sticking around Bart, it would definitely make me feel better about it."

He just shrugged. "Sure."

So, as soon as the bunnies had all gone back down into the holes, they converged on the hub. As planned, Aries smooshed her wool ball down into about half of the holes, while the other half were shielded by Bartolomeo, just in case a rabbit decided to run from the incoming pink mass.

Soon enough, the wool had traveled through every bit of tunnel, and Aries assured them that she had collected anything that was in those holes. Bart removed the shields so that the wool could start coming out, and they each took a hole, scanning the wool that emerged for rabbits very, very carefully. The empty wool disappeared as soon as they had inspected it. Every time they found a rabbit though, they grabbed up the wool, wrapped it around the bunny, and took the whole bundle over to the cage where they deposited it through a small hole in the top. It took a long time before they had collected every single bunny and piled them into the cage. At that point they closed it off and Aries poofed back to the celestial realm, totally tuckered out after the huge wool ball she'd just created.

As soon as the wool disappeared, the bunnies went ballistic inside the cage, bouncing around it like crazed super balls, and pausing to gnaw and scratch at the bars. The metal creaked warningly, and Bart instantly wrapped it with his shield to help make sure they didn't escape.

The next step was to fly them to the Atlana Mountains and then release them back into the wild, but to do that Natsu had to actually get a grip on the cage.

"Don't suppose you could make a handle or something?" he asked Bart, who just smirked smugly and waved a hand. A handle popped out of the top.

With that, Natsu grabbed the cage, Happy grabbed Lucy, and Bart parked himself on top of the cage – much to Natsu's displeasure. His red wings spread and arched up, blasting a hot gale through the fields and sending Happy and Lucy twirling through the air a little.

"Note to self, take off after Natsu." Lucy muttered to herself, and Happy responded with, "Aye sir!"

They dove back down to the two guys, who were in the middle of arguing about Bartolomeo's perch.

"Get off! You're heavy!"

"Oh please, like you can't carry twice this weight."

"In my true form I could carry a hundred of you easy!" He took off, grunting dramatically. "Damn…you weigh a ton though."

"Are you calling me fat?!"

"Maybe! Most turtles are round you know!"

They bickered the whole way, Natsu threatening to drop him more than once. It was a long flight, and they were all more than a little cranky by the end of it. None of them were sad to see the rabbits go when they finally reached the Atlana Mountains. The rabbits had already chewed through the cage, so Bartolomeo just opened up a hole in the bottom of his barrier and they dropped all the Bunnicula into a promising looking meadow. Then they promptly hightailed it back to the plantation.

They arrived late evening, but not so late that Lucy felt she couldn't ring the doorbell.

The butler met her, Natsu, and Happy at the door and politely led them into a sitting room. He disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared a while later to lead them into the office that Lucy had met Mr. Xavier before.

When they got there, he was already sitting behind his desk, and didn't look too happy. His eyes glanced over Natsu derisively. "Couldn't complete the job by yourself I see."

Lucy scowled. "Natsu is a part of my team."

"Hm. Well, the pay remains the same either way. I hope you didn't think to get more money by just bringing in a new 'team member.'"

Natsu tensed up next to her and she could feel a wave of irritated heat escape him. Before he could say something stupid, she hurried to speak. "Right. Understood. Speaking of payment, we've just completed the job. You were infested with a pack of Bunnicula, which we returned to the Atlana Mountains. You might have problems with them again sometime in the future though, because those flowers you're growing out there are their natural food source. With that many, it's bound to attract more at some point."

Mr. Xavier narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't be saying that to cover your tracks, now would you? Are you unsure as to whether you completely eradicated the population?"

"We are Fairy Tail wizards Mr. Xavier. Fairy Tail wizards don't lie about completing a job, and we don't do jobs half-assed." Lucy gritted out, starting to wish she could sick Natsu on him.

"If you don't believe us, how about you go out there and check yourself? Or are you too scared of a few rabbits?" Natsu taunted.

"If you have done your jobs correctly, there won't be a few rabbits for me to be scared of."

"I can assure you, we've done our jobs correctly." Lucy countered.

"Hm. I will have my workers ascertain that fact. Come back tomorrow at 1:00 PM sharp. That will be plenty of time for them to conduct a thorough inspection."

With a terse nod, Lucy agreed silently and spun on her heel, marching out of the mansion at top speed. They continued down the road and into town, and soon Natsu burst.

"What the hell was with that guy?!"

She sighed. "Unfortunately, Fairy Tail doesn't command the respect it used to."

"What d'you mean?"

She cringed a little. Lately they hadn't gone on a lot of jobs together, since he'd been doing more recon to find Tartarus. And on the ones he had been on, she had sent him to the celestial realm and conducted the business part of it – talking to the people who hired them – by herself. Precisely for this reason. She'd rather not have her money docked after he threw a temper tantrum and burned the place to the ground. At the moment, she just didn't have the kind of cash flow necessary to deal with his destructive tendencies.

She supposed she did owe him an explanation though, so with another sigh she admitted, "On almost every job I've gone on lately, the patron is suspicious, shocked that I even came, and even more shocked when I complete the job. It's like they expect me to fail at every turn, and they usually aren't nice about it. Like this guy. He's obviously only hired us because we're the cheapest option, and he's treating us that way."

"So on all the jobs you've been taking, people have been treating you like shit?!"

Judging by his tone, she could predict a dragon temper tantrum in the workings.

"Yeah. Basically."

He growled, and a blast of hot air came off him. "There's gotta be a way to get back the respect we once had."

"Hopefully. But I just don't know how…. Natsu? What are you doing?"

They were walking down a somewhat busy street, bustling with the dinner crowd, and he had stopped to stare at something pasted on the wall of a small restaurant. He ripped it off and bounded back towards her with a broad grin.

Shoving the piece of paper in her face, he exclaimed, "This! This is how we'll get back respect! If we win, nobody'll mess with us."

She grabbed the thing and pushed it back some so her eyes could actually focus on the writing. She was blinking down at a poster advertising the Grand Magic Games. "Oh. This again…" As she stared at it a little more and read the description though, she also started to get excited. "You know…this might actually work."

Without second guessing herself, she folded it up and tucked it in her purse, definitely intending to show it to Master Makarov as soon as they got home. At the moment, she was just too tired to really give it any hard thought though, and they plodded back to the hotel room where they promptly passed out.

…

The next day, they arrived back at the mansion at the appointed time and were shown directly to Mr. Xavier's study this time. He was waiting for them, and promptly launched into speech as soon as they stepped through the door – but he didn't look up from whatever papers he was dealing with on his desk.

"Ah. You. My workers were able to conduct a thorough search of the premises and concluded that you have indeed successfully eradicated the pests."

"Right. Like we said." Natsu grumbled … and then grunted when Lucy elbowed him in the ribs.

"Excellent. So now that you're satisfied with the job, could we discuss the matter of payment?" she asked instead, using her best polite but no-funny-business tone.

"Yes. Here is the agreed upon amount. Count it if you wish."

He held out an envelope, and Lucy took it. Since he hadn't trusted them to properly complete their job, she decided not to trust him on correctly dishing out the jewel, so she did count it. It was missing half. The payment was only 10000 jewel, but he had given her 5000.

"Um, you're missing half of the 10000 jewel."

"That was for damages to the flowers, which likely happened when you were so crudely plugging up those holes."

Lucy gritted her teeth, but Natsu was more verbal. "We barely touched your precious flowers! Which – by the way – were the reason those rabbits were here to begin with!"

"My workers keep a very close tally on all the plants, and at least three were burned and another looked like it had been sat on. You were warned when you took this job that any damages would be taken out of your paycheck."

"You've got thousands of plants out there! Four or five won't hurt you at all! And Lucy spent about 10000 at the hospital! If you're gonna dock her pay for five burned flowers, then you'd better pay the hospital bill!"

Mr. Xavier cocked an eyebrow, unamused. "It's not my fault that you were hurt. You have your own ineptitude to thank for that. I am certainly not going to pay for your mistakes out of my pocket."

Fire burst around Natsu's fists and he snarled, looking like he was second away from setting the whole place ablaze. Lucy hurried to clamp her hand down on his forearm. "Natsu. It's fine. I did agree to pay for damages, and those plants do produce an expensive crop. It's fair. The pay is ridiculously low for a life-threatening job, but we did agree to this contract. However-" She turned back to Mr. Xavier. "Fairy Tail will not be accepting any more of your jobs unless the pay is appropriate to the service requested. Furthermore, if in the future, a job that you post turns out to be much more dangerous than advertised, there will be a large fee. This was almost an S-Class ranked mission, and beyond life-threatening. So consider yourself warned."

Mr. Xavier scoffed. "Oh please. Like you would be able to command a price any higher than mine. You'll all starve if you turn up your noses at low prices."

"We'll see about that Mr. Xavier. Good day."

As always, she found herself spinning sharply on her heel and storming out of the mansion, more than happy to leave it behind and never return.

"I hope he gets more of those Bunniculas!" she growled as they stomped through the fields and back into the city towards their hotel. They were all packed and ready to head back to Magnolia.

"He probably will. And deserves it too…the dick."

"Aye Sir!"

"You know what?! We are going to enter Fairy Tail in the Grand Magic Games! Let's show that bastard what he was messing with!" Lucy snapped, pulling the flyer out of her pocket, and rousing cheers of agreement met her statement.

When they met up with Laxus, he agreed as well, and as the grandson of the current master – and probably the next master – he went ahead and signed them up.

After that it was time to head home, so they all headed to the train platform to purchase tickets back to Magnolia. Lucy grimaced though and gave the prices a hairy eyeball. She'd already spent everything she was going to make on this stupid misadventure on hospital fees and had even gone into the red and spent more than what she'd made. So purchasing another train ticket was not exactly appetizing to her wallet.

"I don't suppose what you made on your scouting mission would cover the hotel bill, the damage fees, and the train tickets…" she mumbled.

Natsu cocked an eyebrow. "If you don't wanna ride the train, I can always just fly you home. You know I'd rather that anyways."

Her mind was blown. Shockingly, the thought had never actually occurred to her…maybe because it seemed really unfair – like she was using him or something. Also, it could be rather tiring.

"Well…Happy? Do you think you could make it as long as you didn't have to carry me?"

"Oh yeah, no problem." Happy shrugged, seeming perfectly fine with the idea.

"Then…I suppose if it's not too much trouble…"

At that, Natsu actually laughed out loud. "You're kidding right? Come on, get on already and let's get the led out!"

"Oh, wait…. what about my luggage?"

"Just send it with Sparky."

There had to be a story behind that nickname, especially when Laxus didn't verbally respond. Without even looking up, he just snapped his fingers and a rather sizable bolt of electricity jumped from his hand to Natsu. The dragon yelped and his hair poofed out. He rounded on the lightning dragon slayer with a series of cusses that would impress a sailor.

All Laxus had to say about it was, "I warned you Fire-Breath…. Don't call me that."

"Fro remembers!" his Exceed backed him up with a perky voice completely at odds with her partner's menacing glare.

Lucy would have probably keeled over laughing… if it hadn't looked like Natsu was about to actually pick a fight with Laxus. That was one bill that she really couldn't pay, so she snagged his scarf as he started stomping in the other blond's direction.

"Natsu…don't you DARE start a fight here."

He froze in place and then slowly turned his head to eyeball her over his shoulder with a slightly apprehensive expression.

Thankfully, that successfully derailed the impending collision, and Lucy breathed a sigh of relief as her boyfriend fully refocused on her.

Eventually they did set off, and Lucy, Natsu, and Happy all flew, while Laxus and Fro rode the train. They reconvened on the other side so Lucy could get her luggage, and then they set off for home. They ran by the guildhall first though to let them know that the missions had both been a success, and Laxus also had the fun job of letting Master know that he had signed them up for the Grand Magic Games. Makarov wasn't exactly happy that they'd done it without his permission, but after a big blustering yelling fit intended to scare the absolute bejeesus out of them, he perked back up to his normal self and agreed that it was a good idea.

They staggered out of the guildhall a while later, shaken but overall pleased with the outcome.

Sneak Peek

The Games were set to take place in one month, which would give them all ample time to train…. an endeavor which Lucy did her best to not liken to the time directly before the S-Class Trials, for fear that she might jinx it all.

The two teams split up, Team B heading into the mountains to train, while Team A decided to isolate themselves on a tropical island getaway.